Back to the future: A retrospective assessment of model‐based scenarios for the management of the shrimp fishery in French Guiana facing global change

While the number of models dedicated to predicting the consequences of alternative resource management strategies has increased, instances in which authors look back at past predictions to learn from discrepancies between these and observed developments are scarce. In the past decades, the French Guiana shrimp fishery has experienced shrimp market globalization and decreasing levels of shrimp recruitment due to environmental changes. In 2006, a bio‐economic model of this fishery was developed to simulate its possible responses to economic and environmental scenarios up to 2016. Here, we compare here these predictions to the observed trajectories. While the number of active vessels corresponds to that which was predicted, the estimated shrimp stock does not. Important driving factors had not been anticipated, including a general strike, natural disasters, and the end of the global financial crisis. These results show the importance of participative approaches involving stakeholders in the co‐construction and shared representation of scenarios. Recommendations for resource managers

• Effective fisheries resources management and a fortiori, the capacity of the fisheries to adapt to global change, requires understanding of both ecological and economics dynamics.
• The temporal trajectory of the trawling shrimp fisheries has been well monitored, and the decline of both stock and fleet is understood regarding ecological and economic changes: Changes in the environmental conditions of shrimp recruitment, and oil price increase and selling price decrease.
• However, our bio‐economic modeling work showed that, even with a good understanding of the dynamics explaining past trajectories, unpredictable events (strike, natural disasters…) have acted as other key driving factors altering the capacity of the model to represent possible futures.
• These results led us to recommend a better integration of the expertise of social and political scientists in developing models of bio‐economic systems to increase the quality of scenario predictions, and to argue for more participative approaches involving the stakeholders.

     

我国渔业企业经济效益分析研究——以2013年我国上市渔业公司数据为例

随着居民收入水平的提高,我国水产品消费数量不断增加.水产品消费需求的增加,一方面导致水产品养殖企业数量增多,水产品养殖产业初具规模;另一方面也导致了市场竞争压力的增大,使得水产品养殖企业经济效益降低.利用2013年我国上市渔业公司财务数据,基于因子分析法研究了我国上市渔业公司经济效益水平.研究结果显示,2013年大湖股份、国联水产各公共因子及综合因子得分都较高,表明其公司盈利能力、偿债能力及运营能力较强,企业后期发展前景较好.而好当家、武昌鱼的综合因子得分较低,需要引起公司重视.最后针对2013年我国上市渔业公司的整体得分情况,提出了提高我国渔业企业经济效益水平的建议.     

Critical comparison of several order-book models for stock-market fluctuations

Far-from-equilibrium models of interacting particles in one dimension are used as a basis for modelling the stock-market fluctuations. Particle types and their positions are interpreted as buy and sel orders placed on a price axis in the order book. We revisit some modifications of well-known models, starting with the Bak-Paczuski-Shubik model. We look at the four decades old Stigler model and investigate its variants. One of them is the simplified version of the Genoa artificial market. The list of studied models is completed by the models of Maslov and Daniels et al. Generically, in all cases we compare the return distribution, absolute return autocorrelation and the value of the Hurst exponent. It turns out that none of the models reproduces satisfactorily all the empirical data, but the most promising candidates for further development are the Genoa artificial market and the Maslov model with moderate order evaporation.     

展望21世纪风能的利用与发展

本介绍了国内外风能利用的现状,并对我国未来风能的利用与发展提出了很多建设性的意见,诸如：发展目标的确立,政策、法规体系的建立,技术性能的提高及新产品的开发,经济鼓励政策及其实施,产业化体系的建设等。     

Decline of minorities in stubborn societies

Opinion compromise models can give insight into how groups of individuals may either come to form consensus or clusters of opinion groups, corresponding to parties. We consider models where randomly selected individuals interact pairwise. If the opinions of the interacting agents are not within a certain confidence threshold, the agents retain their own point of view. Otherwise, they constructively dialogue and smooth their opinions. Persuasible agents are inclined to compromise with interacting individuals. Stubborn individuals slightly modify their opinion during the interaction. Collective states for persuasible societies include extremist minorities, which instead decline in stubborn societies. We derive a mean field approximation for the compromise model in stubborn populations. Bifurcation and clustering analysis of this model compares favorably with Monte Carlo analysis found in the literature.     

Order-disorder phase transition in a cliquey social network

We investigate the network model of community by Watts, Dodds and Newman (D.J. Watts et al., Science 296, 1302 (2002)) as a hierarchy of groups, each of 5 individuals. A homophily parameter α controls the probability proportional to exp (-αx) of selection of neighbours against distance x. The network nodes are endowed with spin-like variables s_i = ± 1, with Ising interaction J > 0. The Glauber dynamics is used to investigate the order-disorder transition. The transition temperature T_c is close to 3.8 for α < 0.0 and it falls down to zero above this value. The result provides a mathematical illustration of the social ability to a collective action via weak ties, as discussed by Granovetter in 1973.     

George Dantzig in the development of economic analysis

The role of optimization is central to economic analysis, particularly in its “neoclassical” phase, since about 1870, and is therefore highly compatible with the impulse behind linear programming (LP), as developed by Dantzig. LP’s stress on alternative activities fits very well with modern economic analysis. The concept of economic equilibrium, properly understood, required the central notion of complementary slackness. so central in LP.

LP was seen as a tool for actual implementation of neoclassical principles precisely at a time when the market was under attack from several directions. The economists Koopmans and Hurwicz played an important role both in stimulating the crucial development of the simplex method and in relating LP to the world of economics.

LP became widely used in national economic planning, particularly for developing countries, and for the study of individual industries, especially the energy sector. The works of Chenery and of Manne are central in these fields.

As respect for the usefulness of the market increased, the emphasis on national planning diminished and was replaced by an emphasis on equilibrium analysis, in which LP still plays a large part in the study of individual sectors, particularly energy.